A firefighter carries a woman from her car after it was caught in street flooding.
Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images

At least three people have died after one of California’s strongest storms in years brought torrential rain and flash floods to the state.

More than 100 homes have been evacuated over fears of mud slides near Los Angeles after the pacific storm, dubbed a “bombogenesis” or “weather bomb”, parked itself over southern California, opening sinkholes and cutting power to thousands of people.

More than 300 flights at Los Angeles international airport have also been cancelled or delayed. The storm stretched far out into the ocean and was at its strongest late on Friday afternoon. It is expected to last until Saturday afternoon.

One man was found dead in a submerged vehicle in the desert town of Victorville after several cars were washed down a flooded street, San Bernardino county fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said.

A second man was electrocuted in the Sherman Oaks area of LA when a tree falling in heavy rain downed power lines that hit a car.

Later in the same neighbourhood, a sinkhole swallowed two cars, the second on live TV as viewers watched it teeter on the edge before plunging in. Firefighters rescued one person from the first car, and the driver escaped from the second vehicle before it fell into the hole.

Inland at the Cajon Pass, the shoulder of a road crumbled and sent a parked fire truck spilling over the side, but no one was injured.

In LA’s Sun Valley, 10 cars were trapped in swift-moving water on a road and 15 people had to be rescued. About 150,000 households in the LA area were without electricity, and 180 homes were evacuated in the city of Duarte, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.

Amtrak cancelled services for much of California’s southern and central coast, and several stretches of road were closed by flooding.

There were several traffic deaths on wet and flooded roads, but it was difficult to determine which were a direct result of the storm.

“The storm looks to be the strongest storm to hit south-west California this season,” the National Weather Service said. “It is likely the strongest within the last six years and possibly even as far back as December 2004 or January 1995.”

By evening, Ventura county and northern Los Angeles county had recorded 24-hour rain totals of up to 7.5 inches (19cm), with the San Marcos mountain pass in Santa Barbara county receiving nearly 8.5 inches.

Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, told the LA Times 10 trillion gallons of rain would fall on California in the next week, enough to fill 15 million Olympic-sized swimming pools or to power Niagara Falls for 154 days.

Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue)

Result in Calfornia over next 7-days is widespread heavy rain ... 5"+ along coast up to 10-12" at elevation. All told, 10 Trillion gallons pic.twitter.com/SXLCXwjOUV

“It’s crazy,” said Robin Johnson, an academic adviser at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s just pouring down rain. The wind is just going nuts.”

The storm also spread precipitation north into the San Joaquin Valley and up to San Francisco, but it was not expected to bring significant rain in the far north where damage to spillways of the Lake Oroville dam forced evacuation of 188,000 people last weekend.

It is part of a series of storms to have hit California recently, after the state suffered from five years of drought.